[anonfornoreason]

I did both, moving out of a big city in middle of pandemic. Socialization became 10x easier the moment I moved. Anecdotal etc etc, but people are more friendly and more outgoing where I moved vs where I moved from.

[LanceH]

Visited a friend in a town of 5000 for a month. A week or two in, I was running into people I "knew".

Personally, I put the sweet spot around 15k, in a town an hour away from a city with a real airport.